Bottom watering plant containers are known to offer several advantages over conventional plant containers requiring top watering. For example, there is less loss of water to the surrounding air due to evaporation with bottom watering, and therefore less watering is required to maintain the desired soil moisture levels. Additionally, bottom watering causes less run-off of fertilizers and other soil treatments relative to top watering, resulting in greater retention of fertilizers and other treatments.
Various systems have been proposed to allow automatic bottom watering. For example, U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2007/0028520 discloses an irrigation system in which float valves are placed in a plurality of plant growth containers. The plant growth containers are connected in parallel to a common water reservoir. However, this system requires a specialized conduit extending from the reservoir, having a plurality of taps permitting the containers to be connected in parallel.
JP4135426 discloses another bottom watering system in which a plurality of planters can be connected in series. However, the plants must be grown in special pots that are placed in the planters. Additionally, the planters must be specially formed with a channel thereunder to allow routing of waterlines between planters.